i just spent 3 days formation flying and or escorting in the south west. i generally had a visual on 1-2 targets and could see when the xrx was correct and when not.

first i am impressed and the unit worked well over all. i have no rearward vision and eventually it made sense to me to fly the lead because the xrx allowed me to track the rest of the formation.

all the flying was mountain flying, close to the terrain and the coverage was good but with some dead times where there were no targets. i could see the traffic about 90% of the time.

targets close in front of me sometimes showed behind me.

targets below me with only belly xponder antennas were sometimes not seen on the xrx.

up and down antennas on all traffic would be nice. it made me think that if i want to be seen by other cas systems i should be high but if i want to see more traffic low is better.

I attended the AOPA Expo in Harford, CT earlier this month and visited the Zaon booth. They are developing an installed system that will use remote antennas and I believe some of the anomolies that you described will be eliminated with the new system. This new system will cost about twice what the existing XRX costs now, but I was told that Zaon will offer a 100% refund of your original purchase price if you exchange your XRX unit for the new design, when it becomes available. The message was that the guts in the new system are the same guts in the existing system, so they can reuse everything except the case.

If this all pans out, it is a very attractive offer and one of the reasons that I recently purchased my XRX. I have now made half the investment for an installed system and can still use the features and benefits of the XRX until the next generation is perfected.

I look forward to a panel mount unit with remote antenna but there is no way I am paying much extra for that. There is no reason why this should be that much more expensive.

While no pricing has been set yet, there are the obvious costs of an external fiberglass housing for the antenna and additional cabling, integration box and mounting tray, among other components. An XRX-dedicated glass-panel display is also in the works. Even if a target price was set at $4k-$5k, I must point out that this is still 40-50% the cost of the closest competitor, as in a Avidyne TAS system. It has always been at the core of our development strategy to provide low-cost, highly accurate systems aimed at the General Aviation market, and XRXi is no exception.

I would be willing to pay some more for the housing, cable, box and tray but I also know that you should be recovering some cost for the existing housing etc that you won't need.

For 90% of us an additional panel is not needed as most of us are interested in integrating your system with other devices we already have that do this job quite well already. I would hope that you do not force everyone that wants a panel mounted unit into purchasing your dedicated glass panel.

There is no reason to compare it to the cost of the closest competitor because it is not that comparison that enables a person to have the cash to purchase these units, it is the low cost to high value ratio that pushes someone over the edge. Anything more than $2000 becomes more of a problem for people that have to spend $5 a gallon for fuel. I would dare say that if everyone had to pay 5 grand for one of these units, your sales volume would be significanty impacted. Your really not competing with those high dollar systems so much as you are with the GTX-330 which for experimentals the upcharge for this is way less than your solutions. (I know it's limitations, but a ton of people readily accept them)

There is a huge market just waiting to be tapped in the experimentals and LSAs where a $2000 panel mount solution like this that can connect to the G396/G495/G496/G59? and the G430/530 series. These people don't usually need, want or have space for another flat panel screen so please make this an option to keep the cost down. Also concider the experimental market can do allot of the work with mounting and cables that could also be a way to keep cost down.

I love your system and how it works and will have one in my airplane soon but I would rather have a cost effective panel mount version with an external antenna. If the cost to get this is a large premium, I will go with the portable solution and live with it.

Why can't Zaon develop a remote antenna system that will simply plug into the XRX for better reception?

I've been using the XRX in my Bonanza for almost 1 year. I like it and it works pretty good, most of the time, but as previously discussed it has occasionally misses some very close targets (for reasons that are explained in the users guide)

However, I certainly don't want to spend $4000 to $5000 on new hardware or $100/hr to have an avionics company to intstal it. Especially if it still "misses" targets.

I strongly suggest continuing to improve the XRX perhaps some sort of "plug in" antenna or antenna booster could be designed. If the panel mounted unit is better than the XRX tell me why?....if its the remote antenna placements then how about designing remote antennas for the existing XRX??

Other comments:
** I only use SCREEN B....its so much more descriptive than the other screen and so much faster to decipher.

** Why can't the XRX save the volume setting last used insead of always returning to the factory default volume (which is way too loud in my headsets)?

RW